near

You already know, if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, that Christmas abroad is not always easy to come by. It has to be sought out. It has to be courted. It has be coaxed.

Thanks to the book I’ve been editing this week (set in Africa), plus traveling from home just a few weeks ago, my internal GPS has been in a bit of a whirl. My insides aren’t too sure if I’m in Africa, America, or Israel — let alone what time of year it is. So it’s been extra challenging to feel that maybe, just maybe, it’s about time to invest heart and thought in the fact that Hey! Jesus came.

But bit by bit, my heart and brain have come around. Coloring a Nativity scene with small friends. Some candlelight. Plotting up a little joy for a few loved ones.

Last night helped a lot. My aunt wrote that she imagined me riding a donkey down to Bethlehem for Christmas Eve, but in reality, I hitched a bus (filled with folks doing their weekday thing) into town, began walking up a street, and stopped at a crosswalk. There, a voice behind me said, “Merry Christmas!”

Wondering what brought on this (very welcome) greeting, I turned around to see a friend from Mexico, and two of her friends. As a carillon began playing nearby, we discovered that we were on our way to the very same carol service in the Old City.

It was standing room only when we arrived, and really, I was quite content to stand there, and to sing along.

Madrigals led to carols, which led to an unfamiliar hymn: “Here, in my heart, is Messiah.”

Here?

Here! He’s here!

As we sang song after song, I noticed, with my Hebrew-student ears, that along with place names like “Bethlehem” and “Israel,” one word stood out. It was “Immanuel,” which, in a sense, is a place name too. Because if there were a GPS that could locate God, then this is what might come up on the screen: immanu El — “God (is) with us.”

The Bible says, “He is actually not far from each one of us.”

Wherever we are, His location comes up on the screen as near.

He is not only the long-expected Jesus, he is near. He is very near. In fact, “Here, in my heart, is Messiah.”

Wow. What a wonder that is.